Movenber Part 3. Panic Attacks - Courage - Cannabis

January 2009. Boarding Cunard's Queen Victoria leaving Southampton for New York

After 30 years of marriage to Kerry, we decided time apart was needed. She went north to family. I decided to go sailing, on someone else’s boat for a change. I also decided to start this long awaited story.

Kerry drove me to the cruise ship terminal in Southampton. I desperately needed an adventure, but also knew courage was required.  As I placed my hand luggage on the security scanner, I started to shake, more on the inside than the outside.  I felt hot, my chest was beating and I felt dizzy. Shit I am having a panic attack.  I walk through the scanner, my hand luggage pops out, is taken to a desk and I am beckoned over.   

They search my bag. I smile; my heart is trying to explode, sweat is running down my armpits and my legs are weak.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is embracing the fear and proceeding.

At last I am free. I to rush to my steerage class cabin, lie down on the bed and use my panic attack abdominal breathing technique to calm down.  My acupuncturist says rubbing the soles of your feet on the ground whilst sat stimulates a reduction in anxiety also, but I hadn't met her at this point. Panic Attacks have been a feature of my life from an early age.

My first recollection of such an attack was at the age of 8.  We lived in a council house in Featherstone West Yorkshire.  A small mining town with a population of 15,000 famous for its Rugby team which had won many honours against the giants of the game.  My father was captain of the team.  This particular evening my dad was out.

I was watching telly with my two younger brothers in bed asleep.  My mother, heavily pregnant was somewhere. ‘Colin are you awake’ she shouted, 'Yes mum' but as I responded I sensed an anxiety in my gut, my second chakra. ‘quick get the phone number from the mantelpiece, go next door (we didn't have a phone) and call the midwife, the baby is coming’.  

Shit I am alive, I felt my heart beating in my chest for the first time ever, my knees felt weak and I couldn't breathe.  I ran, found a scrappy piece of paper and ran next door.  ‘Can I please use your phone my mum is having a baby’   I dialled the number only to get the answer 'Yorkshire Imperial Metals'; my dad’s factory.  'My mum’s having a baby' I screamed. 'Sorry son I can’t help your dads not here' came back.  Why the neighbours did nothing at this point I do not know to this day.

Panic, home where my mother is now on the bed saying 'the baby is here it's a girl', I interrupted her and said, 'can I see the baby mummy', 'no Colin I need a midwife'.  I ran half a mile, to the doctors in Featherstone Lane, banged on the door and yelled ‘My mother has had a baby girl and needs a midwife'.  

A woman came back with me, no car, we ran all the way back. The midwife's car beat us by seconds.  The woman said 'boil the kettle and wait outside the door'.  I remember thinking this must all be my fault and should a eight year old really be boiling a kettle.

At approximately 10pm that evening my sister Mandy was born. 

49 years later, December 2009, I spent Christmas with Mandy. I sat with her, during chemotherapy, as her breast cancer had spread. We were very close and shared all our deepest fears and secrets.

Queen Victoria is a seriously POSH (Port Out, Starboard Home) ship. My adventure was about to begin, a single man on a ship, for forty days, with over 300 single woman and less than 30 single men. Base chakra heaven?

And the point I am making is:

If you are going to take half an ounce of weed onboard, it’s best not left in your hand luggage, no matter how well hidden!